


Trouble In Paradise

by pherryt



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adoption, Cheating (but not really), M/M, Marital Problems, Miscommunication, established Destiel, time apart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 00:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16862641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherryt/pseuds/pherryt
Summary: There's trouble in paradise. What was supposed to be marital bliss has somehow boiled down to Cas thinking Dean's cheating on him and Dean thinking Cas is a liar and their two best friends are caught in the middle, with everyone saying, "WTF happened?"





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 34 – Destiel Marriage Problems
> 
> That's it - thats the whole prompt. Obviously, i assumed they wanted angst, so they got angst. But i was more than willing to work toward a happy ending. I was requested for a continuation (( i need more (with a happy resolution or i will die) Ooh yes give me all the pain (but happy ending is good too yes) YES HI I AM INTERESTED IN A SECOND PART. BUT I MEAN IF YOU WANTED TO WRITE MORE ANGST I’M COOL WITH THAT TOO)) So i did.
> 
> Since the first two are very short (352 words and 444 words) and the third is really long, I've combined the first two together here.
> 
> (Moved)

**Cas's POV:**

“Dean’s cheating on me,” Cas stated glumly, slumping into Hannahs’ couch.

“Oh no, sweetie, are you sure?” she asked, horrified on her best friends account.

He swallowed past the lump in his throat. No, dammit, he was through crying over this. Unable to open his mouth, he just nodded. She pulled him into a hug and let him just breathe for a few moments. When he finally felt like he could talk again without bursting into yet another bout of tears, he pulled away.

“It can’t be anything else. He’s been coming home late, being evasive when I ask. We’ve been arguing more lately too and instead of staying to try and work it out, he just says ‘Whatever’ and walks out! I have no idea where he’s going and then he refuses to answer his cell. And you remember what he was like in college…” Cas’s voice trailed off.

“Yeah, but…he may have slept around but he never  _cheated_ on anyone. I don’t understand. You two were so in love. I thought…of everyone we knew, you two would make it. Weren’t you both talking about adopting recently too?” Hannah was confused. He sighed. So was he, to be honest.

“Yeah, we were. The next round of papers came in the mail the other day to fill out. I didn’t even bother, just tossed them in the trash.” Cas sighed mournfully for the future he’d dreamed of. A happy home filled with a loving husband and multiple children to dote on. His lip quivered again.

“But you were so excited…” Hannah flinched at her own words.

“I can’t keep going like this, as if everything is fine. I won’t adopt a child if he’s going to wind up leaving me. I won’t put a child through that. They don’t deserve it,” he sniffled around the words, his throat closing up again and his voice cracked, the tears running down his face. “How did it all go wrong, Hannah? I don’t understand…”

Cas broke down into sobs and Hannah could only hold him and help him through it.

_What, indeed, had gone wrong?_

 

* * *

 

**Dean's POV:**

Dean was numb as he looked into the trash. With trembling hands, he reached in to pull out the torn envelope with the adoption agency’s logo on it. He shook off the onion scraps he’d just tossed down on top of it.

Expecting it to be a rejection letter, he braced himself, swallowing before he pulled out the letter – but then he found it was anything but. Dean stared in confusion. But why was it in the garbage? Had Cas changed his mind? Had he been humoring Dean all along? But Dean had thought…well, obviously, Dean had thought wrong.

Shoving the papers back into the envelope, and the envelope into the back pocket of his jeans, Dean had just enough presence of mind to turn off the stove and shove everything back into the fridge haphazardly before grabbing his keys and leaving, no longer in the mood to celebrate.

Charlie answered the door on the second knock. Dean didn’t waste any breath on niceties. The first thing he did was shove the envelope in her face and stalk off to find her liquor.

“What the hell is this, Dean?” Charlie narrowed her eyes and sniffed it, “And why does it smell like moldy onions?”

“They weren’t moldy. And what do you  _think_ it looks like?”

She gasped, “Oh my god! Are you and Cas going to be Daddies?” she turned to face him and froze. “Wait, that is  _not_ your happy face. What happened?”

“It smells like onions,  _Charles,_ because I found it in the fuckin’ trash!” Dean growled. “Where’s your stash, red? I need a goddamn drink.”

“The  _trash?”_  she asked, stunned, ignoring Dean’s question. He turned around to repeat it but found his best friend right up in his personal space with a sad expression.

“Oh no, please, don’t look at me like that…I can’t…it’s…” Dean shuddered and he bit his lip. Charlie wrapped her arms around him and he broke, sobbing into her hair.

“Have you talked to him about it?” she asked quietly when he eventually died down to random sniffling.

“What’s there to talk about? Cas obviously changed his mind and didn’t think it was important enough to discuss with me first. I thought we were in this together…I thought…I thought he loved me. If he didn’t want kids, he just had to  _talk_ to me…and he should know that. But he didn’t. He lied to me and went behind my back. I can’t…I just can’t…”

“Ssshhh….” Charlie pulled Dean against her as he started sobbing again. She just didn’t understand. She was  _positive_ Cas had wanted kids just as much as Dean.

_So what the fuck had happened?_


	2. The Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas and Dean finally talk about what's going on...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1459 words....
> 
> Sheesh, the first two parts COMBINED made less than 1000. I just couldn't keep it short! there's more angst here (Is it a good or a bad sign if you cry while writing a scene?), but definitely ends on a happy note. Remember to follow the series if you want to read more of my ficlets - or follow me on tumblr to catch then when they post :D

For the last week and a half, Dean had been crashing on Charlies couch and drinking her stash, while Hannah had to deal with increasingly wet throw pillows from Cas’s crying. Both of them were distraught and enough was enough.

It was time for an intervention.

It was Charlie who came to the conclusion first, calling up Hannah in a rare moment of solitude. “Hannah, I have no idea what’s going on but something is very wrong. They’re too much in love for this. They need to talk.”

“Agreed. Though I’m not all too certain you’ll get Cas to agree to it, not when…” Hannah trailed off and Charlie squinted suspiciously at her phone.

“When what?” Charlie demanded.

“Well, he’s convinced Dean is cheating on him and he’s been trying to gain the nerve to confront him about it ever since.” Hannah’s’ voice was perplexed.

Charlie groaned. “Oh fuck…that’s what this is about? That’s why Cas threw the adoption papers out? Dean, you’re a god damn moron!” She fumed in the startled silence, only wishing Dean had been there to  _hear_ her.

“Wait, do you know what’s going on?” Hannah finally asked.

“Apparently, I do. Look, Cas’s fears are unfounded…but understandable. Let me explain…”

**

Dean wondered what the hell he was still doing there. He sighed, looking around the apartment he and Cas shared. He hadn’t seen much of his husband all week.

To be honest, he hadn’t seen much of him in over a month before that, and it had been wearing on him greatly. But it had been for a good reason. It was the reason he’d come home early with a plan to cook Cas’s favorite things, and finally fill his husband in on what was going on, thinking that Cas might want to celebrate once he’d heard.

And look how that had turned out. Maybe Charlie was right, though? Maybe he should at least  _try_ to talk to Cas and figure out why he’d changed his mind. He looked down at the bag in his hands and tried to decide what to do. Charlie had shoved him out the door and told him to ‘go home and figure yourself out’ but now here he was and he didn’t know which way to go.

Tears stung his eyes and he wiped them away angrily as the sound of the door handle jiggling made him whirl in place, eyes widening in surprise when Cas actually came through the doorway.

He looked like hell.

Dean knew what that felt like. He wasn’t sure if he should be happy he wasn’t the only one suffering or if he should run over to comfort his husband and find out what was wrong.

If it had been a week and a half ago, that wouldn’t have even been a question. How the fuck had they gotten here?

“Cas?” he managed to choke out. Castiel froze, head rising to stare at Dean in shock. He’d obviously not expected Dean to be there.

“Dean! I…what are you doing here? I thought you had better things to do?” Cas’s voice was bitter and Dean’s brow furrowed, taking a step closer to his husband.

“Wait…why would you think that?” Dean asked.

“Why would I…?” Cas looked at him in open mouthed astonishment. “Dean, you haven’t bothered to spend time with me in over a month, and you’re always evasive when I ask what’s up. It’s  _obvious_  you’ve grown tired of me.”

“Grown tired of you? Fuck, Cas, I missed ya like crazy man!” Dean blurted, taking a few more steps closer. Cas shifted back and Dean froze.

“Well, you sure could have fooled me,” Cas spit out. “I’m just getting some stuff and then I’ll leave.”

“Leave? Wait, no! why are you – you can’t leave me, Cas!” Dean said desperately, moving forward in his panic again. Cas pushed past him with a glare.

“Don’t touch me Dean…not when you’ve been….” Cas sniffled.

“Been what, Cas?” Dean demanded, his own voice wobbling at Cas’s rejection.

“Cheating on me,” Cas’s whispered word were barely heard but they hit Dean like a truck.

“What?” Dean’s voice was barely any louder in his shock and Cas turned to look him in the eyes for the first time since he’d come through the door. What he saw there obviously surprised him.

“You…you haven’t been?” Cas’s voice shook, a hand reached out tentatively to touch Dean, stopping just short of his cheek. “But…why else were you avoiding me? Coming home late all the time and refusing to tell me why? Dean, I don’t understand!” he pleaded.

“You really thought that I…I was cheating on you? Is that why you…” Dean swallowed and reached into his pocket for the two envelopes there. He hadn’t been able to stop carrying either of them. The onion stained one was on top as he handed it to Cas. “- why you threw this away? I thought you’d lied to me about wanting kids. That…”

With hands shaking nearly as much as Dean’s, Cas took the envelope from his husbands’ hands, recognizing it instantly.

It was the one  _underneath_  that he didn’t recognize.

In a daze, Cas flipped the second envelope over and stared at the logo, his heart sinking. He reached for the papers inside with trembling fingers. “What’s this, Dean?”

“That…that was supposed to be a surprise. I was going to show that to you the night I found…” Dean swallowed. “I just wanted you to be proud of me. I wanted to be the kind of dad our kid would be proud of.”

“So you’ve been…you’ve been taking night classes? All this time?” Cas stared at him wonderingly, and a little miserably too.

“Yeah, special classes on an accelerated time schedule. It was mostly just insane amounts of testing. I mean, I already know most of this stuff, I just need to get the certifications for it. And I um…I did.” Dean gestured at the paper now open in Cas’s hands.

Cas sniffed and shook and before Dean knew it, he was engulfed in his husbands’ strong arms once again. With an echoing sniff, he brought his own arms up around Cas, the papers floating to the floor as they gripped at each other with desperate, needy fingers, tears now rolling freely down both their faces.

“I’m so, so sorry, Cas. I never meant to make you think that I was…” Dean buried his face into Cas’s neck.

“No, no, it’s my fault. I know you love me. I should have trusted that. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions the way I did.” Cas croaked out, “God, I was devastated when I thought…I couldn’t stand being away from you. I’m so relieved to know I was wrong.”

Cas jerked back a second later, panic on his face, “Shit, is it too late? What if I ruined everything?”

“Ruined what?” Dean asked, perplexed. “I’m not leaving you. We can fix this, fix us…”

“No, I mean, yes, of course we can, and we will! But I meant…” Cas dove for the floor, landing painfully on his knees and scrambling for the papers he’d dropped. Dean dropped beside him, placing a hand on Cas’s back and rubbing it soothingly, needing the contact with his husband and desperate to help fix things after his mistake.

Finding the papers from the adoption agency, Cas frantically skimmed them over, finally slumping back into Dean in relief, “We still have time.” Cas smiled up at Dean and Dean felt his heart leap for the first time in over a week.

Dean looked down at what Cas was holding.

It was official. They’d been approved and the agency just needed a few last things from them by next week and they’d be parents.

“You mean it?” Dean breathed.

Cas nodded. “I always did.”

“And you’re, you’re staying, right?” Dean’s eyes didn’t stray from Cas’s one iota.

“Of course, Dean. I love you, and I’m so sorry,” Cas answered.

“I love you, too, Cas, more than anything. And I’m sorry too. If I hadn’t hidden this, none of this would ever have happened…” Dean whispered, still hardly daring to believe his ears.

Cas reached out, and this time didn’t hesitate to touch Dean’s cheek, trailing his hand down to cup his jaw. Dean leaned into the touch and Cas thrilled to it. He hadn’t lost Dean after all. He gave his husband a watery smile, “No, it was for the right reasons. I’m sorry I didn’t have faith in you.”

Dean huffed out a short laugh, “Why don’t we just agree that we both made mistakes and put it all behind us and promise to  _talk_ next time?”

“I can live with that,” Cas agreed, seconds before their lips met.


End file.
